It's the game millions love to watch and play. But what is it that makes Aussie Rules Football so unique? Well Aussie Rules was founded more than 150 years ago, by Thomas Wentworth Wills, who at the time was one of Australia's best cricketers. He grew up in Australia and spent some time in England, so he'd seen a lot of different sports played. When he returned home he decided to encourage his cricketing team mates to keep fit in the winter by playing a new game he'd come up with - a game we know today as Aussie Rules.
Over the years, many people have tried to guess where its unique rules came from. Some say it was rugby and other forms of Footy. But others say some of the rules might actually have been based on a traditional sport played by Australia's Indigenous people for thousands of years called Marngrook. Marngrook is the Gunditjmara word for 'Game Ball'. And like Aussie Rules it's a contact sport between two teams that fight for possession of a ball with kicks and catches.
There are a few differences though. Instead of being made out of cow hide a Marngrook ball is made out of possum skin and Marngrook teams are much bigger with up to 50 players on each side. You also had to be pretty fit to play because games lasted for around 2 days! At the end of all that only one person was named the winner. The person who either kicks the furthest, jumps the highest or has the ball for the longest.
But here's where Marngrook starts to look more like Aussie Rules. Teams would come from all over and would be represented by different animal totems. Sound familiar? Marngrook is also a free flowing game without an offside rule just like Aussie Rules. Then there's the mark. If you've ever watched an AFL match you'd know what a mark is. You catch the ball and you get a kick. It's the same in Marngrook. In fact, the word for catch in Djab Warrung is Mumarkke or Mark for short. These similarities have led many people to believe there must be a shared history between Marngrook and Aussie Rules. However, the AFL says there isn't enough evidence to prove it.
But now, transcripts have been found that show Marngrook was played near where Tom Wills grew up, here in Western Victoria - Djab Wurrung country. And there, it was already known that he'd befriended kids from the local Indigenous community and learnt to speak their language. Which means he could have been introduced to Marngrook before creating Aussie Rules.
Some experts still doubt the connection and Tom never actually admitted one. But while the origin of Aussie rules continues to be debated, no one doubts the mark the game has made on this country or the mark Indigenous athletes have made while playing it.
